Avert your eyes! My Sunday morning look at incompetency, corruption and policy failures:
• We Found Rage In A Hopeless Place: A lot of people thought this summer would be great, but most people seem totally fried and at loose ends instead — expectations keep getting subverted, and anger keeps flowing into the void. (Buzzfeed)
• The world 9/11 created: The sprawling, dark legacy of U.S. counterterrorism Twenty years after the attacks of 9/11, the United States has yet to experience a terrorist strike on the homeland anywhere close to that shocking scale. But few even among the Washington establishment see that as an undisputed mark of triumph. Instead, they grapple with debates over American imperial hubris and overreach. (Washington Post) see also see also How 9/11 created the surveillance state We were promised an era of heroism — so where did it all go wrong? (Unherd)
• How TikTok drives kids into endless spools of videos about sex and drugs. An analysis of the videos served to these accounts found that through its powerful algorithms, TikTok can quickly drive minors—among the biggest users of the app—into endless spools of content about sex and drugs. TikTok served one account registered as a 13-year-old at least 569 videos about drug use, references to cocaine and meth addiction, and promotional videos for online sales of drug products and paraphernalia. Hundreds of similar videos appeared in the feeds of the Journal’s other minor accounts. (Wall Street Journal)
• The Tragedy of America’s Rural Schools: Outdated textbooks, not enough teachers, no ventilation — for millions of kids like Harvey Ellington, the public-education system has failed them their whole lives. (New York Times)
• LuLaRoe Exposed: Inside an Alleged Billion-Dollar “Pyramid Scheme” Lawsuit-plagued clothing company LuLaRoe—famous for its leggings—is the subject of Amazon’s new docuseries LuLaRich, premiering September 10. (Vanity Fair)
• How Ivermectin Took Over the COVID Skeptic Internet Ivermectin: the latest unproven COVID treatment to blow up the internet. It’s an anti-parasitic used to treat things like river blindness and lice in humans and, quite commonly, worms and other parasites in horses, cows, and dogs. While there are some clinical trials examining ivermectin as a potential treatment for COVID-19, none have suggested that it reduces the disease. One analysis that touted it as an effective treatment had to be withdrawn for ethical reasons. (Slate)
• Seven Centuries of Slander: Two recent books concerning the blood libel offer hope and a warning. The triumph of myth is not inevitable, but the well of gullibility is easily primed. (New York Review)
• Republicans seethe with violence and lies. Texas is part of a bigger war they’re waging This extremist vigilante abortion law is of a piece with everything else Republicans are doing: overturning democracy itself (The Guardian)
• Can Progressives Be Convinced That Genetics Matters? The behavior geneticist Kathryn Paige Harden is waging a two-front campaign: on her left are those who assume that genes are irrelevant, on her right those who insist that they’re everything. (New Yorker)
• Trump Tower’s key tenants have fallen behind on rent and moved out. But Trump has one reliable customer: His own PAC. But through all of these defaulting businesses — as Trump Tower has dealt with imploding tenants, political backlash and a broader, pandemic-related slump in Manhattan office leasing since last year — it has been able to count on one reliable, high-paying tenant: former president Donald Trump’s own political operation. (Washington Post)
Be sure to check out our Masters in Business interview this weekend with Jack Devine, a 32-year veteran of the Central Intelligence Agency (“CIA”). He served as both Acting Director and Associate Director of CIA’s operations. His latest book is Spymaster’s Prism: The Fight against Russian Aggression
People who make economic forecasts for a living have repeatedly made the same mistake: They have been too optimistic.
Source: New York Times
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